Blu-ray will never trump DVD in the PC market

Will be blue in the face, claims iSuppli

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According to the latest iSuppli reports, Blu-ray will never trump DVD as the primary drive for PCs, with the continuing shift towards media downloads and cheap, portable solid state storage working against BR-adoption in the computing market.

PCs with Blu-ray drives made up a total of 3.6 per cent of PCs sold this year. Which, in anybody's books, is hardly a significant market share. (Well, perhaps in Apple's books, but that's a different issue...).

"Blu-ray will be blue in the face, but it won't be replacing DVDs as the primary drive in PC systems," continues that report.

"Although Blu-ray drives (BD) will find eventual success, its potential is limited in the PC segment," the report adds.

iSuppli calculates that by 2013, 16.3% of PCs sold will contain Blu-ray drives, with a continuing tendency amongst OEMs to drop optical drives on laptop and netbook PCs altogether.

So while Blu-ray has a good few years left in it yet as a format within the dedicated home cinema market, the continuing shift in the home computing market towards cheaper (or free) media downloads and cheap, portable solid state storage solutions (compared with costlier optical discs) seems to be the general direction the industry is headed.

Even Sony Computer Entertainment seems to think so, dropping physical disc-based media for its new PSP Go handheld console that releases later this very year.